


Don't Wait For Me

by theearthisdoomed



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Death Row, Death Sentence, M/M, Prison, Uncertain Ending, WIP, death of a child, not their child, offscreen murder of children
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-11-29 02:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theearthisdoomed/pseuds/theearthisdoomed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One minute they're chasing something black and slimy through the night time streets, the next, there's panic and screaming and Derek's holding a dead kid in his arms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently this is now a multi-chapter/serial fic. Aims: to keep each 'chapter' below 1k. Yeah, that's about it. No update schedule, no plan or outline. No promises or assurances of any shape or form. Read at your own risk (though as I go along I'll add the required Archive Warnings and/or change the rating).

Stiles doesn't see it happen. One minute they're chasing something black and slimy through the night time streets, the next, there's panic and screaming and Derek's holding a dead kid in his arms.

He's got blood on his hands.

Scott's yelling, "Go, Derek, just go," but Derek doesn't move.

~*~

"It was an accident," Stiles says as he strips Derek's clothes off. The shower's already running, the sound of the water masks the wet splat of Derek's shirt as it hits the tiled floor. His clothes will have to be burned, but Stiles isn't going to bring that up now. "You didn't know she was there."

Derek's eyes meet his as he steps into the shower. Stiles thinks it might be the first time since it happened. Stiles has seen Derek scared before, he's never seen him like this.

"How old was she?" Derek whispers.

Stiles sees blonde curls clotted with blood in his mind. "I dunno. Maybe five or six." Tears roll down his cheeks. Blood runs down Derek's chest in pink rivulets, swirls around his feet, down the drain. "It was an accident."

Derek turns away, closes his eyes, lets the water wash over his face.

~*~

"I'm not going."

Stiles keeps stuffing Derek's clothes into the duffle bag he pulled out from under Derek's bed. "You're going." He pulls the string tight, turns around and dumps the bag on the floor. "And I'm coming with you."

Derek leans forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, fingers interlocked. He lifts his head, stares Stiles down with his jaw working, like he's grinding his teeth. "You're not throwing your life away for this, Stiles. I won't let you. I killed that little girl. I'm responsible. I'm not going to run away from it, and I'm not going to drag you down with me."

"It wasn't your fault," Stiles says. "All those other kids, Derek, the ones we weren't quick enough to save, you're going to get the blame for them, too. They'll put you away forever. I can't..." He shakes his head, wishing they were already past the point where he could tell Derek how he feels. A couple weeks ago Derek was still threatening Stiles with violence, and Stiles doesn't know how to tell Derek he's not ready for this to be over yet without making that little girl out to be nothing, without making it seem like he doesn't care about her at all.

He does. He sees her in his mind every time he closes his eyes. Tears blur his vision and he doesn't know what they're for, _her_ , or for himself, because if Derek's gone, he'll be alone again.

Stiles doesn't hear Derek move, doesn't see him get up off the chair, but Derek's arms are around him, Derek holds him while he shakes, while he buries his face in Derek's shoulder, wetting Derek's shirt with his tears.

~*~

Stiles makes sure he's at the station when Derek comes in. He sits in the waiting area, a rolled up magazine in his hands, and he looks up when the door opens.

Derek stops half-way to the desk. He stares down at Stiles while the officer on duty recognises him. Harsh instructions ring out, but all Stiles hears is noise.

Stiles' dad comes, calls Derek 'son', leads him away with a gentle hand on his shoulder and all Stiles can do is watch.

Derek's eyes haven't left him once.

Stiles' fingers itch to reach out, his legs shake and twitch. He wants to get up, he wants to go to Derek, touch him one last time, but all he can do is twist the magazine in his hands and blink back the tears.

The Sheriff stops, slides his hand over Derek's back, gives him a push between the shoulder blades. "Go," he says.

The magazine falls to the floor. Stiles meets Derek at the end of the desk and he doesn't care who's watching when Derek takes his face in his hands, kisses him like Stiles is air and Derek's drowning.

"I have to take him, Stiles."

It hurts more than he can bear to turn his head away and acknowledge his father's words.

Derek's lips move over his cheek in a whisper only Stiles can hear. "Don't wait for me."

Stiles' vision blurs as his father guides Derek down the hall. "I love you," Stiles whispers. "I won't fucking forget."

Derek shakes his head and steps out of sight.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles stares up into the darkness until the sun rises, glows in stripes through his window, wakes the birds. Their cheerful song seems out of place. 

His phone rings and he ignores it, rolling over, jamming his fingers into his ears, pulling the covers up over his head to block out the light.

He must finally fall asleep, because he wakes to his father's voice, a warm hand on his shoulder, salt crusted on his eyelashes. He rubs his eyes, sits bolt upright. "How is he? Is he okay? What's going to happen to him?" 

The Sheriff shrugs. "It's out of my hands. They just picked him up." 

Stiles shakes his head. "He can't be gone. The other ones, out of state, it wasn't him. He was here the whole time. He told you that, right? And that little girl? She didn't look like a kid at the time. She looked like—" A supernatural creature, he finishes silently. A slimy, scaly demon thing that can make other things look like itself, that can make someone think they're killing the bad guy when in reality they're tearing the heart out of an innocent little girl. "It wasn't his fault." 

"He confessed, Stiles. To all of it."

Stiles can't stop shaking his head. "No," he whispers. "No, no, no." 

~*~

Stiles obsessively follows news of the trial with a focus that puts the effects of Adderall to shame, scouring the net for any mention of it, setting Google alerts and subscribing to feeds. He wants to go, but his father threatens to lock him up until it's over if he brings it up again. It's on the tip of his tongue as he sits across the dining table, picking at his spaghetti, twirling one noodle at a time around his fork before letting it fall back onto the plate. "Dad," he says, his voice strained, his throat hurting around the knot that never goes away. 

The Sheriff looks up, brow furrowed, wipes the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. 

Stiles swallows. He wants to ask for help, wants his dad to fix it, fix everything, because Stiles feels so helpless and his heart is breaking, broken. He opens his mouth but the words don't come. 

His father drops his fork onto the plate. "Were you having sex with him?" 

Stiles feels as though this is a conversation they should be having with Derek still around, followed by lectures about condoms and safe sex and how Stiles is still underage and the Sheriff is in the perfect position to make Derek's life very difficult indeed if he hurt Stiles in any way. Stiles should be blushing, embarrassed, horrified.

He's not. He stares into his father's eyes feeling almost nothing at all. 

"God dammit," the Sheriff says. "Just tell me you were safe, please." 

Stiles shakes his head. "We weren't," and then at the horrified look on his father's face, "We weren't having sex. He wanted to wait. Until I was eighteen." 

The Sheriff visibly relaxes. "Good. At least there's that." He pushes his chair out, takes his plate to the kitchen. Through the open door, he speaks. "You know what I had to do to keep your name off the report, Stiles?" 

"Yeah," Stiles whispers. He's supposed to be thankful. All he feels is bitterness. 

~*~

He's promised his father he won't skip any more school, so he's in Chem class during the sentencing. Harris' voice fades into an annoying hum while Stiles looks down at his phone, held low behind the desk, and he refreshes the Web page he's viewing as he waits for the results to go public. 

They found Derek guilty months ago. Now, the best Stiles can hope for is life. The only way he's been able to function lately is by holding onto that hope.

Stiles counts out another five minutes and refreshes the page again. There's a knock on the classroom door, Harris' voice drones, the door opens and the page changes. 

Harris drones again and Stiles hears his father call his name. He looks up. His dad's face is white, his hat is in his hands. Stiles hasn't seen him with that look on his face since the day his mom died. 

He looks down at his phone. "No," he whimpers. He can't breathe, though he's gasping for air. His phone falls to the floor, face up, screen still illuminated. He lists to the side, Danny, sitting beside him, catches him. 

"Are you okay, man?"

"No." There's a cold hand inside his chest, squeezing his lungs, another squeezing his heart. There's noise all around him, the scraping of chair legs on linoleum, shouts, his father's voice telling kids to get out of the way. Then his dad's arms are around him, pulling him to his feet. There's someone else on the other side of him, Danny, he thinks, and they're dragging him out of the classroom. 

Cool air hits him in the corridor, fills his lungs, and it's only then that tears come. "Dad," he cries, his throat dry, hurting, his stomach twisting like he's going to throw up. "They've sentenced him to death." 

"I know," the Sheriff says.


	3. Chapter 3

 It's hot in the car. Stiles winds the window all the way down and closes his eyes against the wind. He doesn't know what to expect, what it's going to be like, and he doesn't know if he's looking forward to it, either. All he knows it's that he has to do it, he has to see him.

"Still don't think this is a good idea," the Sheriff says. He's been saying it for as long as they've been driving. Longer, since Stiles brought it up at the beginning of the summer. "He doesn't know you're coming."

"That's the whole point," Stiles says, scooching down in the seat, pressing his cheek into the backrest. Maybe he can get some sleep before they get there. He sure didn't get any last night.

~*~

The visitation room is small, drab and worn. There's a plastic table, plastic chairs. A shelf with children's books and bibles. A vending machine filled with chips and soda and a sign warning prisoners not to touch it or handle money.

They've been waiting about fifteen minutes when Stiles hears movement from outside the room. He thinks maybe he should take a seat beside his father but when he tries to move he finds he can't.

He's frozen solid in the corner of the room, terrified, his heart racing, pounding so hard he can hear it and nothing else. The door swings open and Stiles flattens himself back against the wall.

The corrections officer walks through the door, a set of keys in his hand. They rattle, there's an answering clink from behind the door. He should be coming through, but he's not. Stiles can see the shadow of shoes under the open door.

"What the hell is he doing here?"

Stiles' dad stands. He can see Derek from where he's sitting, and is probably wondering how Derek knows Stiles is here too. Stiles knows. Derek can smell him, can hear an extra pulse, probably knows the exact cadence of Stiles' heartbeat.

"You signed off on the visitor," the guard says in a gruff voice. "In or out. No problem for me if you wanna go back to your cell." He shakes the keys, taps his foot impatiently.

There's long seconds where Stiles is sure Derek is going to leave, and Stiles would have been so close and not seen him, but then he steps past the edge of the door.

He's dressed in blue jeans, an orange shirt, and he's handcuffed in front of his body. He looks angry, and it's a familiar expression on Derek's face but not one that had been aimed at Stiles for many weeks before he took himself out of Stiles' life. It's aimed at him now.

All the air rushes out of the room. It's too hot, the walls too close. Stiles struggles to hold himself together, to breathe out as well as in under Derek's gaze. Derek glares at Stiles, ignoring everything and everyone else in the room, even the guard as he unlocks the cuffs, steps off to the side, jerks his head in the direction of the plastic table where Stiles' dad is sitting.

"Why'd you bring him?" Derek asks as he sits across from the Sheriff.

"He's not doing so good."

Stiles has to strain his ears to hear his father's words. He's pretty sure he's not supposed to hear at all.

"What am I supposed to say to him?" Derek asks. "I made it clear—"

"Not clear enough. He thinks you didn't do it. He needs to get over this so he can get on with his life." He stands up. "Get over here, Stiles."

Heart pounding, Stiles sits down across from Derek. Derek's scowl has softened, just a little, and his hand inches across the table towards Stiles'. "You don't look so good," he whispers. "You're not getting enough sleep. You're not eating enough. There's drugs in your system. Different ones. What are they for?"

"Antidepressants." Stiles barely makes a sound when he speaks, barely moves his lips, but he knows Derek hears him. "You don't have to be here. You could just walk out. I don't understand why you don't. They're going to kill you and you're going to let them and I...I can't...I won't be able to--"

The tips of Derek's fingers touch Stiles' hand. "You can," he whispers. "You're strong."

Stiles shakes his head. "I'm not. It'll kill me, too. But there's appeals, right? It could be years. Decades even."

Derek turns away. "I plead guilty. No appeals. It'll be a few years maybe. The sooner the better."

There's already tears on Stiles' cheeks, he sobs, more flow out, wetting his shirt. "No. I'll die, too. Can't you feel it?"

Derek shakes his head. "It never went that far. We never consummated the bond. It shouldn't affect you like that. You can walk away. "

"I can't. It's been a year. I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can't think. I need you, Derek."

Derek grinds his teeth, scowls. He turns his face away. "How's Scott doing?"

Stiles gets that the discussion is over. He knows how stubborn Derek can be. He's done all he can, he's told Derek what's at stake. "Okay," he whispers, nods his head. Stiles is, like Derek, an acceptable loss. "Scott's doing good. He's a good Alpha. You'd be proud of him."

Derek looks up again. Almost smiles. "Tell him I am."

Stiles can tell, by the way Derek shifts in his chair, that the visit is almost over. "I love you."

Derek shakes his head. "Find someone else. Look after yourself."

Stiles blinks. "Yeah," he lies. "Sure."  


End file.
